


Bring On The Wonder

by PastelWonder



Series: Return To Me [7]
Category: Blitz (2011), Spy (2015)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Can't Get Enough of this Pairing, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-04-17 16:59:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4674419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastelWonder/pseuds/PastelWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newly married with a baby on the way, Susan Cooper is still discovering she's not the only one trying to piece a life - or herself- back together.</p><p>Together, she and Tom discover time doesn't heal all wounds - love does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Mmm, Tom…”

“What you want?” he rumbles low in her ear, rolling his pelvis against hers.

She sucks her tongue. _Feels so good_. “Uhn… like that…”

“Tell me.”

The heels of her palms dig into his shoulders as she whines, “Come _on_ , Tom. Give it to me...”

“What - like this?” He thrusts in long, unhurried strokes, like he’s got all day and nowhere to be.

_God, it’s like Chinese water torture -_

“Tom!” she huffs, slapping the back of his head lightly. “Stop teasing!”

“Don’t ‘ave a clue what you mean,” he says innocently between nips at her neck. “You asked for it and I’m givin’ it to yah. Don’t know what more you want-”

She cracks an eye open and catches him twitching his lips to hide a grin. “Tom! You are taking advantage of the situation.”

“Oh, so now you’re accusin’ me of taken advantage of a pregnant woman?” he scoffs, never loosing time with his excruciatingly slow thrusts.

Normally, she’d have thrown him over and mounted him by now, cursing his self-satisfied smirk while she rode him fast and hard with one hand braced on the headboard and the other slip-sliding across his chest.

But five months along, her center of gravity has shifted, and it’s a miracle if she can sit up in bed by herself, let alone flip a hundred and seventy pounds of Tom Brant onto the mattress when the man is notorious for fighting dirty.

It had occurred to her on many occasions not to bother with him at all, but throughout her entire pregnancy she’s been what Tom gleefully refers to as The Three H’s: hot, hungry, and horny. And at this stage in the game, reaching around her belly with her short arms to touch herself is more of a hassle than anything else.

So she’s at Tom’s mercy, and he is _loving_ it.

“Thomas Bartholomew Brant, I swear to God, if you don’t _hurry up_ I am going to - nuh...uh.”

Tom rocks forward again, harder, the head of his cock butting against her cervix.

_So so so so so good_. Her head tips back. “Oh God-”

“Sorry darlin’? Didn’t catch that last bit.”

She makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. “Damnit, Tom! I am going to put my foot so far up your ass-”

“ ‘ow?” Hands slipping on the comforter as he gropes for something to anchor himself to, he angles his thrust upwards - _fuck yes, there!_ \- and pants, “Can’t ‘ardly climb into the tub on your own; ‘ow _exactly_ are you goin’ to get your foot that 'igh?”

For all his smugness, the edges of his voice are starting to fray, getting ragged and gravelly.

She smirks.

If there’s one thing she can always count on, it’s Tom Brant’s lack of self-control.

_Time to switch tactics_.

“Tom,” she mewls wantonly, softening her face as she bites her lip. “Tom…”

He pumps faster, hips unconsciously picking up tempo as he rumbles, “What?”

She sucks her tongue, raking her nails lightly across his shoulders, over his scalp. “You feel so good, baby.”

“Oh yah?” he huffs, putting a little power behind his thrusts.

“Oh yeah. You’re so big, baby.” She runs her hands up and down his arms, squeezing his biceps. “So strong.”

The mattress springs creak as he doubles his efforts. “You like that? Like my big strong cock fucking your tight little cunt?”

_Waxing poetic, are we?_ She tries not to snort. “Yes, Tom, yes!”

He hikes her thighs higher up his and shifts his weight forward, thrusting deeper. _Oh-ho-ho yes. Getting there_.

She looks up at him through her lashes, with just a hint of a flutter, as she whimpers, “Please, Tom- I _need_ you. I need you _so much_.”

She can practically hear his self-restraint crack, like a pane of glass right before it shatters, as he drags his hips back and snaps forward, fast and so fucking _hard_.

There it is - that bittersweet sting, like he’s stretching her past her limits - and it is so so good.

She moans.

“Like that?” he growls as he pounds into her, headboarding beating against the wall with the force of it.

She nods frantically. “Yes! Oh God, Tom… Love you - _shit_ -”

Her breath catches; she can feel her orgasm starting to build low in her belly. “Tom _harder_ …”

He snarls something completely unintelligible as he works his hands between the bed and her ass, grabbing handfuls of her and jerking her up and back to meet him. She can hear the _slap slap slap_ of his balls against her ass, and the slick, wet sounds of his cock pumping in and out of her.

“Oh God oh God oh God oh God -”

Her eyes squeeze shut and she clamps down on him as she concentrates on the tremble that’s building and building and -

“Tah-ah-ahm!”

She shudders violently as she comes, digging her nails into his shoulders to anchor herself as the sensation of floating washes over her. “Tom… Tom…”

He hunches forward, bracing himself with his hands on either side of her head and burying his face in her neck as he grunts through gritted teeth, “Susan- I love- love- fuck, Susan-”

“That’s it, baby boy, come on. Come for me, baby,” she coos, still thrumming with pleasure her as she clenches around him. His muscles start to shake under her hands.

“Susan -”

“Come on, baby,” she gasps, wincing as he rams her cervix. Her breasts and belly jiggling wildly as his hips lose their rhythm.

“Ahh, fuck - Susan!” He presses into her as deep as he can; her hips rock up off the bed. She feels him pulse inside her as he comes, toes curling and cracking against her calves. It’s like the whole world is shaking around her as he shudders in her arms.

She strokes her hands over his head and down his back as he gulps for air, collapsing on her as he tries to catch his breath. “So good, baby,” she murmurs. “So good.”

_So solid_. She shifts, his bulk pressing uncomfortably against her belly. “Hey baby?”

“Wha- oh. Shit, sorry,” he slurs, pushing himself up with a groan as he pulls out and untangles his legs from hers. He sits back on his heels, shaking his head once, twice, trying to throw off the haze. He scrubs a hand over his face and snorts.

_Charming._

She bites her lips together, belly shaking in a silent laugh.

“Whassat?”

“Nothing, I was just thinking this is probably what it’d be like mating with a grizzly bear.”

He grunts, not really listening to her; his hands are pressing her thighs apart and his eyes are on her slit.

_And here we go_.

This is one of Tom’s kinks - he likes to go down on her after he comes inside her. Not before. _After_.

“Tom, sweetie, you’re going to be late...”

He’s already shuffling down the bed and settling between her thighs, tongue running over his teeth as he parts her slit with his fingers.

_Oh for Pete’s sake_. “Tom-”

There’s a muffled, “Hush” as he laps at the mingled juices dribbling out of her.

She sighs. Well, at least he isn’t smearing them all over her belly and thighs -

_Nope_ , she thinks as he pumps his fingers into her a couple times to coat them and then drags them across her navel. _Spoke too soon_.

She giggles at the tickling sensation as his tongue swirls around her bellybutton. “Tah-ahm,” she calls in sing-song, “you are going to be late for wor-rk.”

“Don’t give a fuck,” he mumbles, licking his way back down to her slit. She sucks in a breath when he flicks the little dip in her clit.

She can’t reach his head, so she rubs her belly instead. “Mmm, Tom… that feels so - uhn.”

Her head lolls from side-to-side; she’s already trembling as he drags her back to the edge. He works his fingers into her again, hooking as he presses up against the roof of her cunt, looking for -

“Fuck… Tom-” her breath catches in her throat as her second orgasm crashes into her. She jerks a little at how intense the sensation is, trying to wriggle out from under his tongue and touch as she whimpers, “Ok, ok - too much.”

His head pops up above her belly, chin glistening in slick and brow furrowed in concern. “You ‘urt?” he asks, sounding worried and slightly guilty as he carefully slips his fingers out of her.

She can’t help but find him adorable.

“No no, I’m fine.” She pushes herself up onto an elbow, reaching to give him a reassuring _pat pat_ on the head.

“You sure?” He squints suspiciously, laying his big hand over her belly.

“Yes,” she nods, giving him a warm smile. “I’m sure. Just overstimulated.” She lays her hand over his, pressing gently as she catches his eye. “We’re fine.”

He relaxes at that, dropping a kiss to her navel. “Give a bloke a ‘eartattack,” he grumbles, rolling off the bed. He stretches, yawning loudly.

She flinches as he cracks his neck. _Gross_. “Help me up?”

It takes the two of them working together to get her off their bed. It helps that the bed frame is antique, and quite a bit higher than some of the modern frames; once she’s swung her legs over the side, he can pull her to standing easily enough.

He winds his arms around her waist, dipping his head for a kiss. She tilts her chin, obliging him.

“Shower with me?” he murmurs when they pull apart, cupping her breasts and squeezing.

She slaps his hands away lightly. “No way, Jose! You won’t get to work till noon.” She points into the bathroom. “Go. Shower.”

She brushes her teeth while he waits for the water to heat up, catching his wink in the mirror as he steps into the tub. She winks back.

It’s too bothersome - and too hot - to wrestle with her pajamas, so she throws on her lightest robe and pads into the living room. Dodger is lying patiently in front of the backdoor. He stands when he hears her, giving her an plaintive look as his tail _thump-thump_ s against the wall.

“Sorry, Dodge.” She nudges him back from the door with her knee as she undoes the chain. “Ok big boy, let’s go potty. Go on.”

A small flock of house sparrows take flight from the garden, tittering nervously, as Dodger weaves his way through her flower beds, looking for a spot to relieve himself. He lifts his leg on a particularly robust-looking crop of hot pink hollyhock.  

“Ugh - not on the flowers, Dodge!” she calls from the doorway. He looks back at her over his shoulder, not the least bit contrite.  

Holding onto the doorknob with one hand for balance, she stoops by the door to pluck up Dodger’s empty food bowl off the patio. As she refills his dish with kibble from the pantry, she thinks about the cool summer mornings at her grandparents’ lake house in Minnesota.

“Woof!”

Dodger’s waiting just outside the backdoor, by the plastic utility bucket they use as his water bowl in the summer. “Dodger sit. Dodger wait.” She puffs as she bends to set his food down. “Wait.”

Dodger licks his chops, looking from her face to the bowl. She smirks.

_Where-oh-where have I seen that look today?_

“Ok get it, Dodge.”

He springs. The bottom of the bowl scrapes along the cobblestone as he pushes it around the patio in his gusto. His tags make a metallic _clink clink_ against the side of the dish.

She leaves the backdoor open for him to come in when he’s finished, humming to herself as she gathers up the breakfast supplies for her and Tom. By the time Tom comes out of the bedroom, missing a shave and trying to button his shirt two-at-a-time, she’s sealing his sandwich in tinfoil.

He reaches around her to pinch a strip of bacon from where she’s draining them on paper towels, popping the whole thing into his mouth at once. “No time for breakfast,” he mumbles around his mouthful, sucking the fat off his fingers.

“Ta-da!” She waves his sandwich under his nose, smiling brightly. “Bacon and egg.”

“Aren’t you a clever one?” he grins.

She plucks a napkin from the holder on the breakfast counter and folds it half before she tucks it into his jacket pocket. “I aim to please.”

He catches her wrist, tugging her to him. “Don’t you just,” he murmurs, cupping her face and tilting it up for a kiss. Warmth pours through her as she sucks his bottom lip between hers. He makes a low, gravelly sound in his throat, squeezing her breasts through her robe.

_Good gravy_ , she thinks as she smooths her hands down his chest and over his abs. To heck with work; she should just lock him up and throw away the key. Or maybe she should hobble him, like that crazy nurse did in _Misery_ …

“What’s so funny?” he asks, feeling her laughing against him.

She tries to push out of her mind the absurd image of her in a nurse’s uniform sitting astride her husband as he struggles pitifully for his cigarettes on the nightstand. “Nothing.”

He glances over her head, frowning. “Why’s the back door open?”

She gathers her hair up off her neck with one hand and fans herself with her spatula. _So freaking hot and it’s not even eight o’clock_. “Dodger’s out.”

Whatever he’s about to say next is cut off as the house phone rings.

She points to the phone with her spatula as she turns back to the stove. “Get that for me?”

“Am I the fuckin’ secretary?” he grouses, looking out the back door again and muttering under his breath, “Bloody dog.”

Sliding her egg onto a plate, she glances up at him through her lashes and smiles sweetly. “Yes.”

“Jesus, fuckin’ late for work an she ‘as me answering phones -” he grumbles all the way to the sofa table. “What?” he barks into the receiver.

“Tom,” she warns without looking up from where she’s popping more bread into the toaster.

After a beat, his tone changes. “Oh ‘ello, luv. Been alright; no complaints. You?”

Susan snorts.

“Good to ‘ear it. She is - standin’ right ‘ere, pretty as the day is long. You be sure you tell ‘er that when you speak to ‘er, she ‘as a ‘abit of forgettin’ it. Listen, luv: I’m runnin’ late and I’ve got to push off. Alright then, you too. ‘ere she is.”

He holds the phone out. “S’Nancy.”

_Is it that time already?_

“Jiminy Christmas, Tom! Go go go!” She makes a shooing motion as she tucks the phone between her shoulder and ear. “Nancy!”

“Morning, Susan! Nice to talk to Tom for a bit. He sounds well.”

The man in question is blocking the kitchen exit with his bulk. He tilts his head as he leans down, offering her his cheek.

“He is, he is.” Susan pecks him softly, the crisp, spicy scent of his aftershave washing over her. Covering the receiver with her hand, she whispers, “Have a good day, be careful."

_Please be careful._

_Yah, yah_ , he waves. He points to the back door as he takes his keys off the hook. “You shut and lock that when I’m gone, you understand?” 

_Yes, go!_ she mouths, watching him shrug his jacket on. “So what’s shakin’, bacon?”

_Bacon. Crap, Tom’s sandwich!_ She snatches it off the counter, snapping her fingers at him.

He takes it from her with a sheepish grin and a wink. Ache streaks across her breast.

_“Rick,” she calls, pawing through the grocery bags on the counter. “Did you remember to get coffee creamer?”_

__

_“Whoops,” he says, coming in with the last of the load. He grins sheepishly. “Forgot it.”_

__

_“Rick…”_

__

_“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” he gives her a wink. “I’ll nip back out and -”_

She forces a smile and a cheery wave as he closes the front door, locking it behind him.

“Susan?”

The smile slides off her face. “Hey - sorry, Nance. I’m here. Tom’s late for work and he… I... ” She combs her fingers through her hair, takes a deep breath. “I just got a little Rickrolled.”

_Rickrolled_ is something Nancy came up with, as a lighter and more succinct way for Susan to say, _Sometimes my husband looks/does/says something exactly like my dead lover did, and I feel like I’ve been punched in the kidneys_.

There’s a soft flutter in her low belly as the baby shifts. She lays her hand over it, feeling her baby moving against her. She blinks, realizes her lashes are wet. “Sorry, Nance,” she says again, dabbing at the corner of her eyes with a napkin.

_Damnit_.

“Susan, sweetie,” Nancy soothes. There’s a few beats of comfortable silence between them, and then she asks, “How’s baby?”

Susan smiles at the affection in Nancy’s voice. “Baby’s good! We’re just chugging along. Did I tell you Tom’s been writing names on pieces of paper and sticking them in random places for me to find?”

“Well that’s subtle, isn’t it. All boy names, presumably?”

_Bingo_. “You guessed it. Let’s see, there’s Thomas Aiden Brant. Thomas Declan Brant. Oh, least we forget - Thomas Patrick Brant.”

“Hmm, I’m sensing a bit of a theme here…”

Susan laughs, whistling out the backdoor for Dodger. She rewards him with a piece of bacon when he comes, which he accepts with great enthusiasm. “I mean, I like the name Tom, but do we really need a Thomas Brant the fifteenth, or however many they’re up to now?”

“He _is_ Irish,” Nancy sighs. “They’re all like that.”

“No they’re _not_ ,” Susan scolds softly, smiling as she does the chain on the backdoor.

Nancy snorts. “How would you know?”

“How would you?!” Susan laughs, hand on her hip even though Nancy is three thousand miles away.

“Facts are facts, Susan,” Nancy teases in her _I’m-English-and-therefore-very-knowledgeable-on-these-things_ tone. “Oh, I almost forgot - Tom wanted me to tell you that you’re a lucky woman.”

Susan snorts. “Am I?” She opens the cabinet for the sugar pot.

“He does shower you with compliments. And there’s that roguish appeal -”

“Nancy, I found another one. In the sugar.” Susan unrolls the slip of paper - looks like a corner he tore from a bill - and squints to make out, “Thomas Liam Brant.”

“Ah, very nice, that one. By the way, does Tom know about the -”

“No,” Susan snickers as she folds the slip of paper and pops it into the Mason jar on the counter she keeps the other in. “He doesn’t have a clue.”

“You mean there’s a cake in your fridge that says, _Happy Birthday Sergeant Brant_ and he hasn’t asked what it’s for?”

“It’s not close enough to his beer for him to notice.” Susan’s only half-joking.

“One of the undersold points of marrying a misogynist, really: the ease with which you can hide things from your husband in the refrigerator.”

“They should start printing that on the brochure.”

“Absolutely.”

They chat while Susan eats breakfast and wipes down the kitchen. It’s their daily ritual; Nancy calls on her lunch break, which is right after Tom leaves for work for in the morning, and they catch each other up on the last twenty-four hours. It started when Susan met Tom on her mission in London, and they’ve kept it up ever since.

It’s strange, Susan thinks later, as she rinses the shampoo out of her hair in the shower, that she moved in with Tom less than a week after they met. She watches the suds run down her breasts and over her swollen belly. She’d married Tom almost a year to the day they met, and was pregnant with his baby nine months later. They’d scarcely closed on this house when she got the test results back from the doctor, and that was in April.

She and Rick had danced around each other for over a decade, stealing sidelong looks across the conference room when they thought the other wasn’t looking and brushing against one another in the hallway in passing. He’d stand beside her at the company Christmas parties, refilling her punch glass and sneaking glances down the neck of her sweater while they traded quips. That was before Budapest. Before -

“Holy smokes! Dangit...” she scrambles to turn off the faucet with one hand as she tries to shield herself from the shower head’s icy blast with the other. The hot water heater must not have had a chance to refill yet after Tom’s shower. “Son of a beesting.”

“I get it,” she says to no one in particular as she steps carefully over the side of the tub onto the bathmat. “Cold shower, very funny.”

_  
The universe’s punishment for melancholy. Hilarious._


	2. Chapter 2

She falls asleep in her recliner, watching reruns of British game shows while she folds laundry.

Being pregnant is exhausting; by the time she’s made breakfast, taken a shower, and started a load of whites in the washing machine, her back aches and she’s absolutely _famished_.

She points the floor fan at herself as she rolls her hair, sitting at the vanity Tom bought her after she collapsed from standing too long at the bathroom sink.

The dizzy spells have a habit of sneaking up on her when she least expects them, going from feeling frisky and energetic one minute to trying to remember to fall backwards as her vision greys-out the next.

It was all perfectly normal and nothing to be concerned about, Dr. Freedman had assured her. Or had assured Tom, rather, as Tom backed him into a corner of the examining room, snarling about _‘stupid bloody quacks not doin’ their fuckin’ jobs right’_. Cowering behind a life-sized silicon replica of a woman’s womb in the third trimester, Dr. Freedman had rushed to explain that the dizziness was caused by fluctuations in hormones, and that if Mrs. Brant would simply put her feet up and rest, it would pass.

Afterwards, there was a follow-up argument in the hospital parking lot between herself and Tom about the definition of putting one’s feet up and resting. Susan felt that twenty minutes in her armchair with a glass of ice water and a magazine was sufficient. Tom, on the other hand, had interpreted that to mean bed-bound for the next thirty-six weeks, and felt that his offer to allow her to roll around in a motorized wheelchair under his supervision was exceedingly generous. When he came home from work the next day with said-wheelchair from a local medical supply store whose owner ‘owed him a favor’, she was exasperated, and also, bizarrely touched.

She feels a little light-headed this morning as she applies her makeup, so she slips on her robe and pads into the living room when she’s finished, intending to watch television while she folds a batch of towels. They’re still warm from the dryer, and she manages to fold two of them before she nods off with the third one spread across her lap.

She dreams about Tom.

She’s standing in the kitchen, cooking breakfast. Only it’s not their kitchen; it looks like the one in her house back in Arlington. Or maybe it’s the kitchen in Tom’s old apartment. She can’t tell which - it reminds her a little of both.

The back door is open and Dodger is out in the yard, barking. It’s not the usual affable yapping she hears when he’s tearing through the vegetable garden chasing rabbits, or when Tom’s Buick pulls into the driveway. It’s a deep booming woof-woof that makes the hairs on the back of Susan’s neck stand on-end, because it’s the way he barks when someone’s at the house, someone he doesn’t know.

Tom stomps out into the yard before she can stop him, still pulling on his tee shirt and grumbling about wringing that bloody dog’s neck when he catches him. Susan tries to run after him, but her feet feel heavy, like she’s wading ankle-deep through sand. By the time she makes it out of the back door and around the side of the house, it’s too late.

Tom is on one knee in the driveway, grunting and rasping for breath as he struggles to rise to his feet. There’s a stain on his chest, blacker than the rest of his shirt, and he coughs wetly, drooling into a puddle of blood.

It seeps into the gravel and spreads outward, creeping along the rocks and dirt until, finally, it reaches her. She feels it, warm and wet, on the bottoms of her feet and between her toes. She’s paralyzed, watching with unadulterated horror as her husband  - her lover, her world - asphyxiates on their driveway in a pool his own blood.

The last thing he says to her before he rattles and falls face-down into the gravel is, _Run_.

Spike Milligan is squawking, “I always keep a tin of glee handy!” over laugh-track as she jerks awake, pulse pounding in her ears and sick to her stomach.

Dodger’s asleep beside her recliner, snoring softly with his snout propped on the rim of the laundry basket. Slowly, quietly, she winds the towel in her lap around her hands like a muff and uses it to smother her mouth as she screams and screams.

**  
**  
  



	3. Chapter 3

The clock on the dash says twelve-thirty-two. She needs to shake a leg if she’s going to be at the station on time.

Susan’s grateful for the excuse to go for a drive, even if the car is roasting as she climbs in and sets her cake caddy on the passenger seat.

“Oh, for crying out loud...” she grumbles when the car starts and she’s blasted in the face with hot air. She fiddles with the climate control knobs until it starts to cool down, dabbing the perspiration off her upper lip with the back of her hand.

Prince’s _Let’s Go Crazy_ picks up where it left off as she backs out of the driveway. She’s a little too jittery for _Purple Rain_ , so she puffs her bangs out of her eyes and digs through the console until she finds her _The Immaculate Collection_ cassette.

The Mercedes doesn’t have a built-in CD player. For her birthday, Tom bought her a six-disk changer with an iPod port. Well, he _says_ he bought it; she has a sneaking suspicion someone at the Mercedes dealership had suddenly ‘owed him a favor’.

Not that she’d ever openly accuse him of extortion. For one thing, he’d launch into some ridiculous lecture about how the Irish invented extortion, and for another, she really wants to keep her disk changer, and she doesn’t think her conscious will let her if she knows all the details. Even without asking, she’s pretty positive however he got his hands on it wasn’t exactly on-the-level -  it costs more than half of their mortgage payment, and it doesn’t have a serial number.

At any rate, it’s sitting in the garage, waiting for Tom to find the time to install it.

Some of the tension in her shoulders starts to melt at the opening bars of _Like A Prayer_. She applies a little more pressure to the gas pedal and lets out a long, shaky breath as she feels the car accelerate.

Driving helps her to focus, to regain a sense of control. She loses herself in the slide of the steering wheel in her hands, the vibrations of the bass as her music blares over the speakers, the smooth sensation of rushing along the road, scenery blurring as she goes anywhere she wants to, only where she wants to.

She started going for long drives after Rick was killed - after the nightmares started - flying down Washing Memorial at three a.m. in his Lexus, listening to Tracy Chapman and Melissa Etheridge and Alanis Morisette and screaming at the top of her lungs.

After she met Tom, the nightmares got so bad she considered buying herself a cheap sports car, for the nights when he worked late and she was trapped in his apartment, feeling like she was coming out of her skin waiting for him to come back. When she asked him to take her to a used-car dealership in Brentwood, he grunted, _‘_ _Don’t be daft_ _’_ and gave her the keys to his Mercedes. From then on, he rode the train to work, hitching rides home with the third-shifts who had beats near his apartment. That was a month after they met.

How did she not know then that he was in love with her?

She takes the entrance to the highway on her left, towards South End, merging into the right-hand lane with one hand on the wheel as she massages her belly with the other.

Since the pregnancy, Tom doesn’t let her drive by herself at night anymore, insisting she gut out the anxiety until he’s home and can come with her. He rides along, slumped against the passenger-side door with arms folded over his chest and knees apart, snoring open-mouthed. The sight makes her think of a big, mean Rottweiler on a chain tie-out, lolling lazily in the shade as he dares passersby to cross his yard.

It amazes and terrifies her sometimes, what Tom takes for granted about himself. Doesn’t matter what it is - a flat tire, black ice, a gas station on the wrong side of town at two in the morning - he’s confident he can protect her from anything. Sometimes he doesn’t even bother to bring his gun, just his billy-club or, occasionally, his hurling stick.

Having seen what he’s capable of, good and bad, Susan almost believes he _can_ protect her from anything. Even herself. God, especially herself.

As she zips past the exit to Harlow, she remembers the night they met, and the first few weeks after. It makes her cringe a little when she thinks about how she treated him, how she hid things from him, lied to him, called him by another man’s name for months... She was shattered when he found her in that motel in Romford, broken up into a million sharp-edged pieces, and he brought her home with him and cracked dirty jokes to make her laugh while he sat on his hands and watched her put herself back together.

No, Tom is not romantic. Tom is not tender. Susan wouldn’t even say Tom is particularly nice. He’s rude and sarcastic; he loves to goad her until she’s ready to wring his neck. And yet she knows there is nothing - nothing - he won’t do for her, won’t give to her.  

During their wedding ceremony, to the shock and horror of her guests, Tom looked into her eyes and solemnly vowed he would douse himself in gasoline and set himself on fire if she asked him for a light.

In retrospect, that was entirely her fault for insisting they write their own vows, given what she knows about Tom’s penchant for dark melodrama and the Irish’s macabre sense of romance.

But it was kind of sweet, really, the conviction with which he said it, and the way his voice gruffened and his hands shook in hers as he promised to have her and to keep her for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, all the days of his life. Nancy had wept like a baby, though whether it was because she was genuinely moved, or because at that point she was still half-convinced her best friend was marrying the Devil, Susan isn’t sure.

What she is sure about is that somehow, in the process of Tom’s world revolving around her, she’s built hers around Tom.

This is it: A12 Romford and Central London. She puts on her blinker, moving into the left-hand lane and taking the off-ramp. From this point, she has to use the map Falls drew for her on a scrap from her steno pad. Susan’s only been to Tom’s station one other time, and that was when they still lived in the city and she could ride the train.

There’s a nervous flutter in her low belly as she takes a right onto Victoria Avenue and spots the station’s parking garage up ahead. Tom doesn’t exactly like surprises, and his pregnant wife showing up at the station in the middle of the afternoon with a birthday cake most definitely constitutes as a surprise.

Besides, she thinks, glancing down self-consciously at her swollen belly as she pulls up to the guard shack of the parking deck, she’s not exactly good for his grizzled lunatic image.

As planned, Nash is waiting for her, access card in-hand.

She unlocks the doors for him as he hurries around the front bumper.

“Miss Farifax,” he greets her as he lifts the cake caddy out of the passenger seat, sliding under it and settling it in his lap. “Good to see yah.”

It’s an inside joke of theirs: Nash always greets her by the cover she was operating under when they met. In fact, he’d addressed the card on their wedding gift to, _Mr. Thomas Brant and the lovely Miss Elaine Fairfax_.

“Porter!” she beams at him. “Whoops! I should’ve set that in the back.”

He swats at her words, “Not a’tall.”

She bites her cheeks to hide her smile as he buckles his seatbelt to ride the whole fifty feet into the parking deck. That’s Porter - he’s a rules guy.

As the metal arm of the security gate swings up, he points, “Just up there, by the lift. Spot’s open.”

“Great!” Susan doesn’t feel like walking any farther than she absolutely has to in this heat.

Sure enough, there’s an empty space right beside the elevator, and even though he studiously avoids eye contact as he unbuckles his seatbelt and climbs out of the car with her cake caddy, she suspects he’s made sure it was available for her.

“There yah are, my dear,” he says as he opens her door and offers her his arm. His eyes widen and he jerks forward slightly as she takes it and tries to pull herself out of the car, but he shifts his weight onto his back leg and braces himself with a slight incline of his head towards her, _Try again_. Working together, they get her out of the car and firmly on her feet in two more attempts.

“Whew!” She blows her bangs out of her eyes, feeling them stick a little to her forehead. “Crying Pete - that is not getting any easier.”

Porter bends to peck her cheek. “Yah look lovely.”

She shakes the skirt of her dress, unsticking it from the backs of her thighs as she snorts. “I look like I’m smuggling a beach ball under a tablecloth.”

“Nonsense, Susan, yah look wonderful.” He nudges her a bit with his elbow so that she looks him in the eye as he says quietly, “It suits yah.”

She blushes, feeling herself tear up a little as she rubs her belly and smiles softly, “Aw, Porter. Thank you.”

__

_Freaking hormones_ , she thinks, blinking.

“And that is a very pretty dress,” he adds warmly as he tucks her hand into his elbow. “Blue is very becomin’ on yah.”

This morning, she decided to wear a cobalt blue maxi dress with a v-neck and three-quarter sleeves for the occasion. It’s new, and it cost about what they spend on two weeks worth of groceries, which is to say a lot, because she’s pregnant and Tom likes his steak on a bed of pork chop with a side of ground beef. But it’s so incredibly comfortable, and she feels pretty wearing it, and - most importantly - it breathes.

“Oh, stop,” she waves her hand. “You look very handsome yourself, Chief Inspector Nash.”

He makes a high-pitched _hmph_ sound as he nods at the panel for the elevators. “Four, if yah would.”

The floor tilts a little as they step on, and at first she thinks maybe it hasn’t come to a complete stop, but then her stomach grumbles, and she realizes she’s starving.

“Somethin' wrong,” Nash asks as the doors close, watching her dig busily through her purse.

“Shoot,” she huffs, peering into it as she feels around the bottom for her protein bar. “No, it’s just… I thought I… packed a snack…”

He checks his watch. “Have yah had lunch yet?”

She glances up at him sheepishly. “Yes.”

“Really?” He cocks his head at her, looking perplexed. It’s only one-fifteen. “What time?”

She tucks her hair behind her ear and murmurs, “Oh, around twelve or so…”

Dangit, why didn’t she pack a snack?

“Well, no wonder you’re hungry, poor lass.” He pats her hand awkwardly _there-there_ . “When my sister was pregnant, she ate every hour on-the-dot. And after that long drive in this blasted heat...” He _tsk_ _s_.

“Come along to the canteen with me,” Nash gestures with the cake caddy for her to step off the elevator first as the doors open. “We’ll get yah a bottle a’water and somethin’ to eat.”

She sighs gratefully, because a bottle of water sounds _heavenly_ , and because Nash has a way of navigating even the smallest embarrassing moments with grace.

“Have I told you lately that I love you?” she says, wrinkling her nose affectionately as she nudges him.

Nash ducks his head, always bashful when praised, and clears his throat. “Not lately.”

There’s a security checkpoint in the lobby just outside the elevators. A large sign over the metal detectors says, _Employees Only_ , and another on the x-ray scanner says, No Weapons of Any Kind. Beneath the sign is a poster with clip-art pictures of various types of weapons, including knives, guns, and a cannonball bomb with a long rope wick.

The security guard looks like he’s not a day over twenty, with spindly arms and a skinny chest and a sparse smattering of red whiskers on his chin and upper lip. He’s propped against the x-ray machine, reading a magazine - _Loaded_ _,_ she guesses, catching a glimpse of a naked butt on the front cover _._

“Chief Inspector Nash,” he greets, fumbling to hide his magazine under the camera monitor keyboard as Nash sets the cake caddy onto the conveyor belt.

“Good afternoon, Officer Reynolds,” Nash nods curtly, placing his belt and wallet in the plastic bin Reynolds hands him. “Put your things right up here, Susan.”

Reynolds gives Susan a surreptitious once-over, smiling flirtatiously as she slings her purse onto the scanner belt.

She and Nash share a look that says, _Oh brother_ as she steps through the metal detector. She starts to ask Nash, “Is Liz meeting us in the canteen-” when the x-ray machine makes a piercing ringing sound, conveyer belt coming to a dead halt as the cone light on top of the camera box flashes yellow.

“Do yah have somethin' in your bag?” Nash whispers, reaching reflexively for her elbow as he takes half-a-step in front of her.

_Something in my bag?_

“My what? No, I-”

For a wild second, she pictures a metal file baked into the cake, until she sees x-ray monitor. She gulps.

There, in the outline of her purse, is the clear green-and-black image of her Glock twenty-six. Scratch that - Tom’s Glock twenty-six. For which she does not have a permit-to-carry. Or a license, for that matter.

_Popsicle sticks ._

Nash sees it at the same time she does, eyebrows reaching for his hairline as he hisses under his breath, “Yah brought a _gun_ into the station?”

“I forgot!” Susan whispers back defensively, eyes wide and hands unconsciously cradling her belly as a wave of cold washes through her.

Holy smokes, are they going to arrest her? She can’t go to jail - she’s pregnant. Maybe they have a special jail for pregnant women. Should she fake going into labor? Would they make her have her baby in the jail? How could that possibly be sanitary?

An image of herself in a jail cell, giving birth handcuffed to a hospital bed in an orange paper gown, flashes through her mind.

“Ma’am,” Reynolds hikes up his duty belt with a stern look, all the warmth gone from his eyes. “I’m goin’ tah need yah tah-”

Susan looks around for something - anything - to use as a weapon. Spying Nash’s belt in the plastic bin, she starts to formulate a plan: shove Nash into Reynolds, using the distraction to disarm the guard with the belt and make a break for the staircase before he has a chance to sound the alarm -

“Officer Reynolds,” Nash holds out his hand to get the officer’s attention before gesturing to Susan as if he was introducing the American consul at a gala. “Have yah met Sergeant Brant’s wife, Susan Brant?”

Reynolds freezes, head cocking to one side and brows knitting together as he repeats slowly, “Sergeant Brant’s _wife …”_

“Yeah,” Nash nods primly, and in an _oh-deary-me_ tone, says, “Forgive me for not introducing yah; I assumed yah’d met. Susan, this is Officer Charles Reynolds. Officer Reynolds, this is Misses Susan Brant.”

Eyes bulging out of his head, Reynolds snatches off his constable’s hat and scrambles around the x-ray machine, offering her his hand to shake and a hasty, nervous smile. “M-misses Brant, s-so nice tah meet yah.”

“And you, Officer Reynolds.” Susan takes his hand, breasts jiggling a little as he shakes it with gusto.

He notices, eyes snapping back up to hers as he flushes the same color as his hair. He quickly lets go of her hand and hides it guilty behind his back, stuttering, “P-please call me Charlie, ma’am. And so s-sorry bout the mix-up. Shall I put this in a locker for yah, ma’am?”

Susan glances at Nash, who gives her a slight incline of his head, _Yes_.

“Yes, thank you, Offi- Charlie,” Susan smiles warmly, adding, “I’ll have Tom pick it up on his way out.”

Reynolds looks positively terrified at the prospect, but manages a, “Y-yes, ma’am!” as he hands her her purse.

“Thank you, Officer Reynolds.” Nash takes Susan by the elbow and tugs her to the left, down a long corridor.

He smiles with a polite, “Hello” at the two female officers who pass them, looking back over his shoulder before he says lowly, “Is that Tom’s gun?”

“Well, it- I- yes,” she finishes lamely, tacking on hopefully, “I don’t think it’s police-issued, if that helps?”

“It doesn’t,” Nash sighs. “It’s lucky for yah you’re married to the Bulldog. Don’t know what we would've done if-”

_Wait, the Bulldog?_

“The Bulldog?” That’s been Susan’s nickname for Tom ever since their honeymoon, when he literally tore a pair of black lacy panties off of her with his teeth. She’d been pretty pissed - Nancy had given her those as a gift at her bachelorette party, and she’d really liked them. The things Tom had done to her when she scolded him, _Bad dog!_...

She gasps. “Tom _told_ you about that!?”

“What?” Nash glances down at her as they round the corner to the cafeteria, perplexed. “Everyone at the station calls him that.”

_Everyone at the… Oh wait, he means -_

“Haha… hmm, I… nevermind!” she chirps, over-bright.

Nash takes a breath to say something, then thinks better of it, shaking his head. “I don’t want to know.”

He sets the cake caddy down at an empty table and pulls out her chair for her, watching anxiously with hands out at-the-ready to catch her as she braces her hands on the table and carefully lowers herself into her seat. She massages slow circles into her belly while he goes and gets them each a snack, glancing around the cafeteria.

_Does Tom eat here?_

An image of him, hand clutched to his chest, over his heart, telling her to run, flashes in her mind. She winces.

“Steady on, old girl,” Nash calls as he sets a tray in front of her. It’s got two cups of tea, a water bottle, and what must be at least a dozen cookies piled on a plate. He gives her a worried look as he drags the chair across from hers around the table to sit closer to her.

He glances at her belly, elbows propped on the table as he gently wrings his hands. “Everything alright?”

“Mm, mm-hmm,” she nods, gulping down some water. She reaches over the mound of cookies to give him a reassuring _pat-pat_ on the arm before she chooses one off the top of the pile. “Thank you for cookies. And for-”

He holds up a hand, _It’s no trouble, really_.

She swallows her mouthful, insisting, “You are such a gentleman, Porter.”

“Well, I- “ Nash bounces lightly in his seat as he plucks up his teacup.

“Really,” she says, hiding her mouth behind her hand as she chews another bite. “I wish you’d rub off on Tom.”

Nash spits his tea back into his cup at that.

“Jiminy Christmas, Porter!” She scrambles to hand him another napkin as he makes a snort-choke sound. “Not like _that_!”

“No-” Nash coughs into the napkin, flinching a little as she gives him a strong _thump_ on the back. “No, I daresay not. I’m rather attached to my face, yah see, and I-”

“Susan!”

Falls is beaming as she strides across the cafeteria to their table. Susan’s never seen her in her constable’s uniform before.

She looks so sharp, Susan thinks, chest swelling with pride as she beams back. “Liz!”

“Chief Inspector,” Falls nods at Nash, tucking her constable’s hat under her arm as she crouches down beside Susan.

“ ‘ello, Baby,” she murmurs, pressing her hand firmly against Susan’s belly. “ ‘ow’s my li’le one, yah?”

This is what Susan loves about her - Falls is so unguarded, so openly affectionate. Susan can see every emotion that crosses Falls’ face as she rubs Susan’s belly, talking softly to the baby.

She reminds Susan so much of Nancy it aches, in the very best way.

“Baby alright, then?” she asks, looking up at Susan and grinning.

Susan smooths a flyway back from Falls’ forehead, smiling. “Baby’s wonderful.”

She takes Falls’ hand, moves it to where the baby is pressing against her side. “Feel that?”

Falls concentrates for a second, face lighting up as she feels the baby move. “S’bloody brilliant!”

Susan looks at Nash. “Wanna feel?”

Nash fidgets nervously, crossing his elbows and lacing his fingers together as he shakes his head, _No ._

“Chhht, come on, then,” Falls chides lightly, pressing a kiss to Susan’s temple as she stands. “And ‘ow’s Mummy doin’?”

“Oh, well, I pee a little every time I laugh. Or sneeze. Or cough.” Susan rubs her belly, feeling the baby kick. “Other than that, no complaints!”

Nash makes a face, _Too much information, if you please_.

Hand on her hip, Falls asks, “Brant’s bein’ good to yah? Not givin’ yah shit or nofin’?”

Susan pictures Tom giving her lip as he carries in the groceries, changes light bulbs, sets the laundry basket on the bed for her. Tom on the sofa, shouting at a hurling match on the television and rubbing Susan’s feet while she lays stretched out beside him, reading a magazine. The two of them lying naked in bed together, Tom’s large hand splayed across her belly, murmuring to their baby in an accent so thick she can only understand every third word.

“He’s being a good boy,” Susan says with a mischievous little smile.

Nash snorts.

“Good.” Falls gives Susan a knowing look. She lifts her chin at the cake caddy. “S’that it, then?”

Susan nods, taking a bite of another cookie. “That’s it.”

Falls lifts the caddy carefully, raising it high above her head to look at the cake from underneath. She makes another Chhht sound when she sees the bottom’s opaque. “Can you tell us?”

Susan bats her lashes coyly. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Right, plan’s the same then, yeah?” Nash asks, glancing anxiously at his watch.

“Yeah. I’m sortin’ it in the canteen; Susan, you’re distractin’ ‘im until two.”

Susan salutes. “Agent Susan Cooper, reporting for duty!”

“Come on, then,” Nash stands, chair legs scraping on the linoleum, and offers Susan a hand up. “As they say in the States: let’s get this show on the road.”


	4. Chapter 4

The elevator doors open with a cheery _ding_ , and Nash motions for Susan to step out as he follows right behind her.

_So this is where Tom works?_

The bullpen is brimming with officers, most of whom look quite young. Phones are ringing, voices are chattering, there’s the sound of paper printing and people typing away at their keyboards. It reminds her of the basement at Langley, if you quadrupled the staff and added windows. And uniforms. And replaced all the equipment with their nineteen-nineties equivalents.

She’s spotted by several young male officers gathered around a receptionist’s desk near the elevator; they nudge one another and flash her salacious grins and eyebrow waggles.

Nash catches a couple of them, frowning back sternly as he explains to her, “Just got a new load in from the police college.”

Susan jerks back a little and makes a disgusted noise as one young man juts his hips out at her and winks.

“South End Station’s bright new future,” Nash snorts wryly.

She smoothes a hand over her belly, feeling that nervous flutter again. Tightening her grip on Nash’s elbow for balance, she rises onto the balls of her feet and surveys the bullpen. “Where’s Tom?”

“Dunno,” Nash replies distractedly, eyes on an approaching officer. The man is older, closer to Tom’s age, with a sour look on his face that softens just a touch as he glances at Susan. He’s at least six-six, with a body that looks like two-hundred-pounds of solid muscle-on-muscle.

_I could take him._

“Nash, somethin’ urgent for yah. Those reports yah wanted ‘ave come back, and s’not lookin’ good, I can tell yah that.” He gives Susan a friendly nod and a casual up-and-down look. “ ‘ow yah do, ma’am?”

Nash gestures between Susan and the officer. “Sergeant McPhee, this is Misses Susan Brant.”

She holds out her hand with a friendly smile. “Nice to meet you, Sergeant McPhee.”

“Ah well, _Brant_ is it?” McPhee smiles broadly, eyes twinkling as he takes the hand she offers in his massive one and shakes it gently. He gives her another once-over. “An what a bonny li’le lassie yah are, Misses Brant. Been wonderin’ what got into our boy.”

He winks at Susan. “Seems more the question is what’s ‘e been gettin’ into.”

Susan balks, wrenching her hand out of his. “Wha-I- _excuse_ me?”

McPhee laughs heartily at his own joke, clapping Nash on the side of the arm with enough force to make Nash stumble half-a-step forward. “Come on then, Nash. These reports ain’t goin’ to respond to themselves.”

“Porter, don’t you dare-” Susan starts in a furious whisper.

Nash shoots her an apologetic look as he tugs the lapels of his suit jacket straight and promises, “I’ll be back in a bit. Just… wait right here and,” Nash gives the rowdy group of young officers a dubious look over her shoulder. He holds out his hands, _Everything will be fine_. “Just wait right here.”

“Peas and sugar,” she mutters to herself, hiking her purse higher up her shoulder and wishing she’d kept her gun. Wait - she has her rape whistle in her wallet!

_Do poison darts expire?_ she wonders.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” A young, pretty blonde calls from a desk to her right. She’s dressed in a police constable's uniform, hair pulled back into a neatly braided bun.

 

“Yes!” Susan nods, smiling brightly.

_Thank goodness, a friendly face._

“I’m looking for Sergeant Brant.”

 

The officer straightens up from her paperwork and slips her hands into her pants pockets. She looks Susan over, giving her a small smile in return that doesn’t quite meet her eyes. _Civilians_ , it says.

“Do you have an appointment with Sergeant Brant?” she asks coolly.

 

_Ok... maybe a not-so-friendly face._

“Uh, no...” Susan says slowly. “I don’t.”

 

“Brant is very busy. I don’t think he’ll see a walk-in.”

 

_So it’s just ‘Brant’, now?_

Susan blinks a few times, thinking maybe she’s just imagining the condensention in her tone. Tamping down the rising urge to wrap her hands around this young woman’s neck, she smooths them over her belly instead.

“Oh, I think he’ll make an exception.”

 

“Really?” The officer crosses her arms over her chest and arches an eyebrow, giving Susan another once-over. _For you? I don’t think so_.

 

Susan glances around the bullpen again, trying to ignore the ogles of the young officers and the hot humiliation stinging in her chest. She’s too nervous and frazzled for all this tomfoolery, and it’s a thousand degrees in this office and gosh _dangit_ where is Porter?

_It’s ok, you can do this. Cool as a cucumber, Susan. Cool as a cucumber._

 

“Yes, _really_!” Susan wiggles her fingers at her sides to keep from balling her hands into fists, trying her best to sound unruffled as she asks, “Do you have any guesses where he might be?”

 

“I’ll give you three,” his voice purrs in her ear from behind her.

Her stomach dips; electricity tingles in the tips of her fingers and toes.

 

“Tom,” she breaths as he steps around her.

 

Standing in the brightly-lit bullpen amidst the hustle-and-bustle of uniformed officers, wearing his dark street clothes and a leering smirk, Tom Brant looks every bit the depraved asocial brute he’s taken for.

And so achingly handsome.

 

 _If they only knew_ , she thinks, picturing him eating out of her…

He props his hand on his hips, fabric of his shirt pulling taut over his broad shoulders, and rumbles in a tone so low only she can hear, “ _What_ ‘ave I told you about leavin’ the house lookin’ that sexy?”

It’s like someone’s turned down the volume on the sound; her heart beats wildly in her chest, like a moth caught in a web. She clears her throat. “Sergeant Brant. I was hoping I could get a minute of your time…”

“S’that right?”

He steps into her personal space, eyes dropping pointedly to her breasts before they cut back up to hers with a predatory glint. He’s furious with her - it’s in the set of his jaw, in the way his eyes narrow dangerously when they meet hers. It makes her a little weak-in-the-knees.

She nods, trying not to look at his mouth as her tongue darts out to wet her lips. “But this young lady has so kindly informed me that you are very busy.”

 

He gives that a considering look, like _Fair enough_ , as he takes another step closer, blocking her escape route, boxing her in. He’s so close she can smell his aftershave and the faint scent of coffee and cigarette smoke.

“She’d be right.”

Her head swims a little. _Good golly, Miss Molly._

 

“Oh, I see...” She’s not aware she’s swaying towards him until her belly bumps into his abs. “I’m so sorry to bother you, Sergeant Brant. I won’t take any more of your time-”

“ ‘old on, ‘old on.”

 

He lifts his hand. Her eyelids flutter as he threads his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck and tilts her head back.

_God, feels so good._

“For a pretty li’le thing like you?” he murmurs, breath hot and moist as it ghosts across her face. “Might make an exception.”

 

He kisses her deeply, tongue stroking firmly into her mouth. She makes a soft, needy noise in her throat, fingers twining in his shirt to pull him closer. There’s an answering growl in his as he reaches around and grips the swell of her ass with one hand, fingertips of the other kneading the the tender flesh at base of her skull. She moans, all the uneasiness niggling at her stomach melting as she sucks his tongue, fingers working under his collar to touch his neck. He drags her closer; she can feel his hard-on pressing into her belly. She’s lost in the sensations of his hands on her body and his mouth moving against hers -

“Oh Goddamnit, Brant.”

She cracks an eye open as their lips slowly pull apart with a soft, wet _smooch_.

_Was that Porter? What’s Porter doing here?_

It’s all starting to float back to her - the cake, Nash, Tom’s coworkers - she’s kissing Tom in the police station. _His_ police station. In front of _ev-er-y-one_.

Nash is standing no more than three feet away, though the uncomfortable twitch in his body language says he’d prefer to be on an entirely different floor altogether. One of his arms is crossed over his chest, elbow of the other propped on it as he rubs his forehead, tapping the floor with the sole of his wingtip.

_Have you two completely lost your minds?_ he glowers.

Unsurprisingly, Tom glares right back, scowling like Nash has spoken too loudly while Tom is taking a phone call.

Cheeks burning, she glances around the bullpen and sees they’ve amassed quite an audience. The older hands, who’ve presumably worked with Tom longer, appear mildly amused; the newer officers are by-and-large flabberghasted. A few of the bolder young men make exaggerated kissing sounds and whoop, “Yah ol’ dog!” and “Smack it ‘er, Gov!”, elbowing one another and grinning. One female officer is perched on the edge of her seat, eyes big as tea saucers as she fingers her collar and fans herself with a manilla folder.

The blonde constable who was so superior a minute ago is slumped against her desk, arms hanging by her sides, gobsmacked.

Susan leans around Tom’s bicep to give her a smug little smile. _Suck on that, sweetie_.

She isn’t really aware of the fact that she and Tom are still clinging to each other like Clarke Gable and Vivien Leigh in _Gone with the Wind_ until Nash clears his throat and says in a smooth, clipped tone, “Sergeant Brant, may I suggest you address any further enquiries of Mrs. Brant’s _in my office_?”

To her wonder, and Nash’s utter consternation, Tom looks like he’s actually thinking it over: Roger my wife in your office or in the middle of the bullpen? Hmm, whattah do, whattah do.

“Tom,” she warns softly, giving his chest a light _pat pat_ to draw his eyes up from her breasts. “This is how we pay the mortgage, dear.”

He snorts.

She wriggles out of his arms, mouths _I am so sorry_ at Nash and flashes everyone else a cute dimpled smile as she cradles her belly and shrugs like, _What can I say?_ “I’m pregnant!”

There it is: her get-out-of-jail-free card. In this case, literally. Hopefully. Maybe?

Someone hollers, “Wish the Misses ‘ad ‘ad _‘er_ kind of pregnancy - broad wouldn’t let me near ‘er for all the gold in the Queen’s coffers!”

“That’s ‘cause she were ridin’ me!” another heckles back.

There’s a round of raucous laughter. It seems her husband’s… earthy sense of humor is the rule at London’s southeast station, rather than the exception.

_Poor Porter_ , she thinks. _Guy looks like he’s going to have a stroke_.

“Come on, you,” Tom growls right into her ear.

Her breath hitches, lashes fluttering at the delicious sensation.

 **  
**The smirk on the stupid jerk’s face as he takes her elbow in his large hand says, _Did it on purpose, didn’t I? **  
**_


	5. Chapter 5

He slams Nash’s office door behind them with a loud _bang_ , metal blinds clinking against the windows as they rattle with the force of it. The muffled wolf-whistles and cat-calls start to die down a little, whether it’s because the crowd has dispersed and gone back to work, or they’re shushing one another as they clamber to press an ear to the door, she can only guess.

He gives her elbow a sharp tug; she stumbles into him with a breathless, “Tom!”

“Mind tellin’ me what the fuck you’re doin’ ‘ere in that dress?” He’s livid alright, but his hard-on is digging into her belly and he’s barking straight at her tits.

She’s not exactly sure how to play this; it’s so hot in this office and he smells so good and she just wants to sit down for a minute and catch her breath-

“Susan,” he growls, taking her by the arms and shaking her lightly. “I’m not goin’ to ask you again: _what are you doin’ here_?”

She swallows, eyes on his mouth and vaguely wondering if this is what he sounds like when he kneecaps people as she scrambles for an answer. “I-I…”

_I was in the neighborhood. I forgot to give you something. I needed a favor…_

“I missed you.” _I missed you - seriously?_ She closes her eyes. _Damnit._

“You missed me?” he says each word slowly, carefully, searching her eyes.

_He knows I’m lying. Son of a bee sting._

“Yes, mm-hmm,” she nods, a little too emphatically. She runs her hands over his chest - no blood, see Susan, there’s no blood - and thinks, _I did miss him. I really did_. “Tom-”

He raises a hand, threads his fingers through her hair at the nape of her neck. Her head tips back for him as he massages the base of her skull. His other hand snakes around her waist to press against the small of her back, dragging her closer.

_Come on, Susan - you can do this. Focus._ “I really did miss - oh God.”

His thumb and ring finger stretch across the back of her head to rub firm circles into the tender spot behind her ears.

She sucks in a breath, bites her lip.

He increases the pressure half-a-notch.

“Tom...”

She opens her eyes - when did she close them? - at his dark chuckle. He’s smirking down at her, watching her face with hooded eyes.

“Let me get this straight.” He dips his head, nips at her neck, murmuring into her ear, “I left for work at ten-till-eight. You must’ve decided you missed me - what - three hours later? Four, tops?”

_Is that what happened? No - the cake… Falls…_

She’s only half-aware of reaching up and cupping the back of his head to pull him closer. “Wha- I-”

He sucks that spot right where her shoulder and neck meet.

_Whoa, Daddy._

“So,” he continues in a low rumble that she swears she can feel vibrate inside her, “you get in the car, in the heat, and drive ‘alf-an-hour to the station and - let me guess - park the car on the street?”

She nods, because that seems plausible enough and because she can’t speak.

His hand slides up her waist and squeezes her breast. “And then you waddle-”

She jerks, eyes snapping open. “Hey now, buddy-”

“You waddle ‘ere,” he continues, louder, hand in her hair tugging lightly. The tingling in her scalp trickles through her; she drops her head back into his waiting hand, baring more of her neck to him. He presses hot open-mouthed kisses on her throat.

“And what a walk it must’a been for yah, sweet’eart,” he breathes against her skin - she hears the pant around the edges of his words, feels him grinding into her. “S’no parkin’ round ‘ere for at least three blocks.”

_Mother butler, it’s so freaking hot. Isn’t he hot?_  “Tom-”

“You show up at the station,” he tugs her hair a little harder, lifting his head to look at her. His mouth is open, breathing ragged, pupils blown so wide his eyes are almost black. “ _My wife_ shows up at a fuckin’ police station in South End, pregnant, wearin’ that _fuckin’ dress_ -”

Susan makes a frustrated noise, because enough is enough, already. “Will you just shut up about my dress?”

Hand still cupping back of his head, she drags him down to meet her as she catches his mouth in a kiss, sucking his bottom lip between her teeth. He moans, stroking his tongue into her, his arm around her waist as he pulls her up and against him until her belly is mashed into his abs and her breasts press against his chest.

_Holy smokes_ , she thinks, clapping onto his shoulders for dear life as her knees buckle. She’s reconciled herself to the very likely probability that she’ll take them both to the floor when he breaks the kiss and bends at the knee, hoisting her up with a grunt and jeez-o- _Pete_ her husband is strong.

He staggers the three steps to Nash’s desk and drops her on her ass with an unceremonious _thud._

“You are unreal,” she breathes, sliding a little on papers and files and God she is _soaking wet_ for him.

She works his belt buckle with trembling fingers, pops the button on his jeans. Over the quiet _zip_ as she undoes his fly, he groans.

“Fuck Susan, you’re killin’ me.”

He hisses through his teeth as she wraps her hand around his cock, gently tugging him closer to press the flat of her tongue to its head. She tastes salty precum, breathing in the strong scent of his musk as she wets her lips and takes as much of him in her mouth as she can.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell.” He cards his fingers through her hair, gathering it up off of her face and neck, out of his way as he watches her blow him.

She lets her spit dribble down his shaft before she grips what she can’t fit into her mouth with her hand. He’s so big, she has to work her chin as she bobs to keep her jaw from getting stiff.

Glancing up at him through her bangs, she sees him watching her with hooded eyes and lips drawn into a thin, tight line. The muscle in his jaw twitches almost perfectly in time with the push-pull of her mouth.

The office is filled with the sound of him breathing harshly through his nose and the slick slide of his cock in her mouth. On the other side of the door, a phone is ringing. She hears someone answer it, “South End Station, how may I direct your call?”

“Stop, stop,” he grunts suddenly, hand in her hair tightening to hold her head steady as he drags his hips back. His cock makes a wet _pop_ as it slides out of her mouth, trailing spit and precum. “Fuck,” he breathes, watching.

“What?” she asks, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Does he want to come on her tits?

“What you mean, _what_?” he says gruffly, tugging her hair until her head’s tipped all the way back. He looks her straight in the eye as he growls, “Goin’ to fuck you, aren’t I? S’what you came ‘ere for, innit, wearin’ that fuckin’ dress?”

Well, not exactly. But since he’s so graciously offering…

“Gosh, you really don’t like this dress, do you?” she pouts prettily, running her fingertip along the neckline. His Adam’s apple bobs. “Should I... take it off?”

Nostrils flaring, he makes a low, guttural sound in his throat that’s halfway between a growl and a groan. “Susan, Goddamnit -”

Watching his face, she traces the tip of her tongue along the inside rim of her lips. His brow furrows as his eyes track the movement perfectly.

_Oh, how the tides have turned._

“Sergeant Brant,” she asks in her softest, sweetest voice, “would you help me take off my dress?”

Moving so fast she barely has time to process, he leans down and snatches handfuls of her skirt, furiously working her dress up over her hips. She has to rush to raise her arms above her head before he drags it off of her, the static electricity in the fabric crackling softly in her ears. She fumbles with the eye hooks at the front of her bra; the last one pops and her breasts bounce free as she jerks forward - Tom’s trying to pull her panties down.

“Easy, easy.” She gropes around on the desk behind her for a spot to brace her hands. Hearing a tearing sound, she hurriedly tries to lift up her hips before he gets frustrated and decides to rips them off.

_No, not these - I like these._

“Pull baby, pull.”

They come off with an elastic _snap_ around her sandals, landing God-only-knows-where as Tom drags her to the edge of the desk.

“Fuckin’ look at you,” he growls, scrubbing his hands over his head as he stares. She parts her legs for him, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth; she hears his exhale as he eyes her slit. “Look ah that, soppin’ wet for me.”

She whimpers as he runs two thick fingers the length of her slit.

_Oh God._

“Like that?” he asks, finding the dip in her clit and rubbing.

“Tom…” She reaches for him over her belly, stretching to stroke her fingertips down his shirt. “Take it off.”

Wordlessly, he crosses his arms and grabs the hem of both his button-down and tee shirt, and pulls them over his head. He balls them up together and tosses them to the side.

He’s so incredibly gorgeous - hard muscles and thick, dark chest hair and absolutely no bullet wounds of any kind.

She crooks her finger, pushing the image from her dream out of her mind. “Come here, baby.”

He wraps his strong arms around her as he settles between her legs, taking her weight and bending over her belly so she can reach with both hands to touch his neck, the sides of his face. As they kiss, she runs her hands over his chest, combing her nails through his chest hair, and feels her breath catch in relief.

“I love you,” she murmurs against his mouth. “I love you so much.”

He buries his hand in her hair, cradling the back of her head as he rumbles, “Lie back.”

Her head in his hand, she lowers herself onto her elbows, one at a time, and lies down on the desk, papers crinkling softly underneath her. Trousers and briefs bunched down around his thighs, brow furrowed, she realizes he’s shaking as hard as she is.

As he rubs the head of his cock up and down the length of her slit, she glances around at Nash’s office, at the cheap metal blinds hanging in the windows, at the filing cabinets with tidy folder bins stacked on top, at his awards hung carefully on the wall.

She is lying here, naked, on her husband boss’s desk, in a packed police station in the middle of the afternoon.

Her heart feels like it’s going to beat out of her chest.

Is the door even locked?

_Nope, don’t care_ , she thinks as he pushes into her, making a high-pitched noise in her throat at the bittersweet sting of him stretching her to her limit.

“Fuck,” he rasps, cupping her tits and squeezing them together as he bottoms out.

Her eyes flutter closed at the hot drag as he pulls out, flinching when he pumps back in and the head of his cock butts her cervix. She’s still tender from this morning, and she needs a minute to catch her breath.

“Wait wait wait! Give me a minute, baby.”

Tom’s lips have all but disappeared as they stretch taut over his teeth. “Fuck, Susan - don’t think I can - shit.”

She nods, cunt clenching around him reflexively as he pulls out and snaps back in, gasping, “Yes you can, baby. Hey - nuh - look at me, Tom...”

He does, brow furrowed and face creased as if he’s in pain.

_God, he’s so far gone._

“That’s it, baby boy.” She makes a _come-here_ motion, soothing her hands down his sides as he bends over her belly, bracing his hands on the desk, bracketing her with his arms. The veins in his forearms stand out clearly underneath his skin. He stills his hips, rasping for breath as he searches her eyes, his glazed and impossibly dark.

She touches her fingers to the corners of his mouth, because she can’t lean up and kiss him with her belly in the way, and smiles. “Who do you love?”

“You,” he grunts, voice low and full of gravel. He tilts his head to nip the pads of her fingers, corners of his eyes crinkling. “Love you.”

Stroking the seam of his lips, down his nose, along his cheek, she whispers, “That’s right. And I love you, Tom. So, so much, baby.”

She sees his shoulders draw down his back, the tension in his neck slack. He butts her palm with his forehead.

_There he is._

“Will you take care of me, baby?”

He bows his head, nodding, and starts to move his hips, picking a slow, easy tempo and angling for her sweet spot.

She crosses her ankles behind him, tucking her heels in against his low back, and lets her knees drop open, widening herself for him and deepening his thrusts.

“That’s it, baby. Uh… yes, like that...”

_So so good._

As her body starts to relax around him, she reaches under his arms and hooks her hands over his shoulders. “Ok, baby- faster.”

He glances up, watching her face closely. “Sure?”

She nods frantically. “Positive.”

With a self-congratulatory smirk, he doubles his pace.

“Uhn… Tom… yes - shit!”

He watches her breasts bounce and jiggle in time with his thrusts, watches as her head tips back, mouth open, when he hits it _right there_.

“So fuckin’ sexy, Susan. Been wantin’ tah fuck yah like this since the day we met,” he pants as he puts more power behind his thrusts. His accent is so thick she can barely understand him. “Then yah come in ‘ere in that fuckin’ dress, tits out and lookin’ at me with your big pre’y eyes…”

The feet of the desk bump and scrape on the tile; she hears the drawers on the other side slide back and forth on their tracks. A coffee mug bounces its way to the edge of the desk and tips over, shattering as it hits the floor.

Her eyes flutter, body melting under his as his words float over her, sinking into her skin and-

_Oh. Well. Ok, then. Add that to the list._

“Oh, Sergeant Brant,” she breathes, tongue flicking out to run along her lips as she catches his eye. “God, you’re so big - fuck - so strong.”

He makes a low, guttural sound in his throat. She’d giggle if she wasn’t clapping her hand over her mouth to smother her yelp as the desk rocks with the force of his hips slamming into her.

_Holy biscuits, Batman._

Both of them are gasping for breath as his hips pump against hers. The desk rattles beneath them, pencils and pens rolling over the edge and dropping to the floor, papers rustling as they shift and crumple under her.

“Ah fuck - yah like that, yah li’le minx? Like my big cock poundin’ your hot li’le cunny, yeah?”

_So close so close so close._

“Oh god, yes! Please, fuck me, Sergeant Brant - please! I’ve been such a bad girl - uhn.” She bites her cheeks to keep from smiling. “I need you to teach me a lesson-”

Her breath hitches as he pounds that aching spot in her over and over. Her orgasm is starting to build low in her belly, edges of consciousness blurring as she focuses on the feeling.

He snarls something, she thinks maybe it's, “Protect you”.

_Oh-ho-ho. So_ that’s _what this is about._

She reaches to brush her fingers along the edge of his jaw. When he looks her in the eyes, she whispers breathlessly, “You’re only one who can protect me, Sergeant Brant - God - the only one strong enough-”

He grits his teeth, growling over the _slap slap slap_ of his balls against her ass, “S’right. Only fuckin’ one-”

_And Bingo was his name-o._

“Please, Sergeant Brant - I need you.” She sucks her tongue, fluttering her lashes at him helplessly. “I need you to keep me safe - shit, Tom -”

He hunches over her and kisses her so hard it pulls the breath right out of her lungs. The walls of her ribcage feel like they touch as she exhales, squeezing her heart.

“You, Tom,” she gasps when he looks into her eyes. “I need. Only you.”

Her thighs shake as the pressure building in her belly is more than she can bear. “I want to come.”

He chuckles, a warm gravelly sound that washes away the last of her resistance. “Well come on, then.”

She shudders, winding her arms around his neck and dragging him to her. Her belly is crushed between them as she buries her face into his neck to smother her keening.

His hips move faster, stuttering as they lose some of their power to pick up speed.

A few more strokes, and he rasps something into her hair that she can’t make out, rocking up onto his heels as he comes. She strokes her hands over his head and down his back, murmuring against his skin how much she loves him, how good to her he is, how happy she is with him.

His weight slumps against her, body still wracked with shudders. They stay that way for a while, holding each other as his cock softens inside her and they catch their breath.

“You’re killin’ me, woman. Yah know that?” he says with a raspy laugh, breath tickling her bangs. “You’re fuckin’ killin’ me.”

“Sorry,” she smiles. _Not really_.

“Don’t be.” He kisses her forehead. “Don’t ever be.”

Her grin widens, still a bit breathless as she teases, “So, been thinking about doing it in Porter’s office for a while, aye?” She slaps him lightly on the head. “You bad boy.”

“Didn’t say that, exactly,” he says with a wicked half-smile, watching her face. “Been thinkin’ bout fuckin’ yah ‘ere, s’true enough.”

When she still doesn’t catch his drift, he adds, “Not on Nash’s desk…”

_Not on Porter’s desk?_ “On yours?”

He nods, corners of his mouth twisting into a smirk.

_Isn’t his desk in the bull-_

She sighs. “Oh for Pete’s sake, Tom…”

Sex in public. Another Tom Brant classic.

“Would you like that?” he rumbles, cupping a breast in his hand. “If I fucked you in front of-”

She rolls her eyes, holds up her hand. _Save it, buddy._ “Just help me up, Tom. I’m hungry and sweaty and I need to pee.”

He shoves himself off the desk to standing, staggering slightly as he tucks his cock into his briefs and hikes up his jeans. “Alright, alright. Jesus, bloke can ask-”

She waves her hands at him. “I said: shut up and help me up.”

He takes them in his with a cheeky grin. “Right, up you go. One, two, three -” He pulls her onto her feet with a grunt.

Still a bit weak-in-the-knees, she overbalances, belly bumping into his abs as she stumbles. He’s surprisingly solid in stance as he catches her around the waist.

“Whoa, darlin’ - ‘old on, ‘old on. Let’s get your li’le fuck-me dress on yah ‘fore you go stumblin’ back out to the wolves.”

She huffs, smoothing her bangs out of her eyes as she lets him settle her back against the desk. “That is a perfectly respectable dress,” she says in her _I’ll-have-you-know_ tone.

“Oh yah? Cost me a couple’a bobs, did it?” he tosses out over his shoulder as he hunts around the room for her clothes.

_Hmph. Like I’d tell you._

“There,” she points to her panties wadded up by the door. He brings them to her clenched between his teeth.

“Ugh, Tom! Give me that,” she snatches them out of his mouth, trying not to smile as she gives him a dirty look. “You are such an animal - hold still.”

She balances herself with a hand on his shoulder as she bends over her belly, looping one of the leg holes over her sandal and working it up her calf before she tries to step into the other. It takes three tries to get her other foot in, which isn’t so bad considering she can’t really see what’s she’s doing.

He holds out her bra for her like he’s helping her into an evening coat. He takes her dress by the hem, gathering it up in his hands as he figures out which is the front and which is the back.

“Arms up,” he grunts, helping her get her hands through the sleeve holes and working the dress gently over her breasts and past her hips.

It reminds her of the way he dressed her while her shoulder healed after she was shot. She blinks, watching him drag his shirt and tee shirt back on, and realizes the rims of her lashes are wet.

_Seriously, with the hormones? Gol-ly._

Nash’s office is a disaster; there’s a puddle of slick on the stack of reports at the edge of his desk, papers strewn everywhere, shards of glass and ceramic scattered across the floor, his name placard turned upside-down and half-hanging off the edge of the desk. The room reeks of sex and coffee and wet toner.

“Poor Porter,” she clucks, really honestly trying to feel contrite as she mops up some of the mess with the tissues they knocked onto his desk chair.

Tom, on the other hand, looks positively gleeful.

“Leave it,” he crows.

“Tom!” She points to the papers on the floor, because she can’t bend over her belly and because that’s what she keeps him around for. “Pick those up, please.”

He does, using a manilla folder to sweep the shards of coffee cup and the glass from the lamp bulb - _when did they knock over the lamp?_ \- into the trash can. She directs him to crack a couple of windows while she straightens up Nash’s paperwork and rights his nameplate.

_There. That should do it._

She winces a little as she turns, thighs coated in slick and slip-sliding together. _Ugh_.

Tom’s propped a shoulder against the door, watching her putter with an amused expression, big stupid grin on his face and eyelids drooping like he’ll doze off any minute.

“Oh my God, Tom - you have got to wipe that look off your face. Now.”

“Me?” He pushes off the door, saunters the whole five feet to her, lifting one of her tangled curls off her shoulder and twirling it around his finger. He licks his teeth, raises his eyebrows at her. “Look at _you_ , sweet’eart.”

She slaps his hand out of her hair, fully intending to say, "Shut your big mouth, Tom!" but somewhere between her brain and her mouth, it becomes, “Shut up and kiss me, Tom!”

He’s happy to oblige.

**  
**  



	6. Chapter 6

Susan is stunned by the reaction, or lackthereof, of Tom’s colleagues as he marches her out of Porter’s office and down a hallway, to the ladies’ room. Most of them avoid eye contact, although a few of the WPCs mutter a red-faced, “‘lo” at Susan as they pass.

 

“What’s the deal?” she whispers up at Tom, the spot between her brows creasing with confusion. Isn’t this the same motley gang that was cat-calling and gawking at the two of them half-an-hour ago?

 

_Good gravy, were we really in there half-an-hour?_

 

She winces as she surreptitiously shakes out the skirt of her dress again, paranoid it’s sticking to the slick on the backs of her thighs.

 

He glances down at her. “What?”

 

“Why is everyone being so…” She looks around at the officers studiously avoiding eye contact as they bustle up and down the hall. “Polite?”

 

Suddenly catching her meaning, he gives her a slow, wide smile that’s all sharp teeth and malice. Dark eyes glinting in the overhead track light, he asks low, “What do yah wager?”

 

 _Oh._ “Oh.”

 

He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t have to.

 

She knows, of course, about the threats and the blackmailes. About the things he did to become a sergeant, and the things he’s done that mean he’ll never move any further up the ranks.

 

The kingpins of Southeast London may despise Tom - the Southend police administration _loathes_ him.

 

She knows all about the beat-downs, too.

 

It’s a fact her Tom loves to fuck, he loves to drink, and he loves to fight. And when he can have all three in one night, well, that’s Christmas-come-early for Tom, isn’t it?

 

Her lashes flutter lightly at the memory of the time he came home still keyed-up from a case that had ended in a brawl with two armed suspects.

 

Her fingers smearing through the blood splatter on his face as he kissed her, arms tightening painfully around her waist, his eye swollen and lip split and no feeling in three of his fingers. His muscles shaking under her hands and his teeth sinking into her skin as he pounded into her hard enough to tear her apart. Her voice in his ear, whispering, goading, _Is that all you got? Come on, baby. Show me how bad you really are._

 

“Alright?” he asks, eyes sweeping over her as they stop in front of the restroom. Someone’s drawn a penis and testicles peeking out under the skirt of the stick-figure girl on the door.

 

“Me? Yeah.” She nods, blushing. “Yeah, I- I was just remembering the Calham Rapist case…” she trails off as he raises his hand, grinning at the mention of it. “What are you-”

 

“Just clearin’ it out.”

 

Clearing it out?

 

_Oh no. No no no-_

 

“No, really, it’s fine!” Her hand shoots out to catch his arm as she warns, “Tom, don’t you dare-”

 

_Too late._

 

He hits the door to the ladies room with an open-handed _smack_ ; it swings open so hard it bounces off the tile wall behind it and vibrates on its hinges.

 

A WPC around Falls’ age standing at the sink squeals and jumps, and there’s a loud, “Watch it, now!” from one of the stalls.

 

“Out!” Tom barks, holding the door open as it tries to swing back closed.

 

The girl by the sink looks from Tom to Susan and back to Tom before she double-times it for the door, ignoring Susan’s, “Wait! You don’t have to- ugh!”

 

“Tom!” she snaps, but he’s too busy harassing the WPC in the stall.

 

“On the double, Cross! This ain’t a tea party.”

 

“Fuck me, Serg - what you fink I’m doin’ in ‘ere? A cross stitch?”

 

That gets a malicious snicker out of Tom before he snarls, “Get on with it, will yah?”

 

Susan covers her eyes with her hand, mortified as she mewls, “What is wrong with you?”

 

There’s an aggressive _zzrrrp_ , and the sound of flushing as the PC bangs open the stall door. She glowers at the two of them as she stomps across the restroom for the sinks. “For the love a’Christ, Brant-”

 

“Yah want a boxin’ or what, Cross?”

 

“Who’s this?” PC Cross juts her chin at Susan as she rinses her hands.

 

Tom stands a little taller, shoulders widening a bit as he narrows his eyes and sneers, “She’s my fuckin’ wife, innit she?”

 

To Susan’s utter amazement, Cross’s face lights up and her tone softens. “Ah, is she, now? Well, ‘appy tah meetcha, luv. Call me Rose.”

 

She offers Susan her mostly dry hand to shake.

 

Susan falters for a moment, completely at a loss, and then hears her mother's voice sing sharply, _Manners, manners, manners!_

 

She rushes to take Rose's hand, smoothing the other over her hair to tame what she’s sure is a wild nest. She must reek of sex.

 

_Kill me now._

 

She musters up a sunny smile and chirps, “Rose, what a beautiful name! So nice to meet you finally. Tom says nothing but nice things.”

 

Actually, Tom has never mentioned her.

 

Rose guffaws at that, slapping Brant’s arm good-naturedly. “Doubt that!”

 

With a grin at Susan and a glare at Tom on her way out the door, Rose warns her, “‘e’s a mean bastard, this one. Don’t know what ‘e’s got on yah-” She gives Susan a meaningful once-over, “but yah got my sympathies.”

 

Susan barely has time to stutter, “I beg your pardon?” before Tom hauls her into the restroom, shouting at Rose’s back, “Nevermind comin’ tah me for yer quarterlies, Cross!”

 

"Yeah, yeah..."

 

Susan whirls around on him as he closes the door behind them. “For the love of Pete, Tom! What in the heck is the matter with you!”

 

“What?” He shrugs, smirking. “Said yah wanted to use the toilet.” He looks around. “You’re ‘ere, aren’t you? So use it.”

 

“ _You_ ,” she jabs a finger at him, “are going to get yourself fired for sexual harassment.”

 

That gets a snort out of him as he works his smokes out of his shirt pocket.

 

“They love it,” he drawls as he taps a cigarette against the side of his hand.

 

“I don’t believe this place,” she says to herself. “It’s like the Twilight Zone. Or the Time Warp. Do you guys give them congratulatory pats on the butt for a job well-done, too?”

 

On second thought, maybe she doesn’t want to know.

 

The corners of his mouth quirk down as he considers it. “Might ‘ave, a time-or-two, back in the day.”

 

“The day?” Susan scoffs, feeling an irrational streak of insecurity as she pictures her husband giving the blonde snob in the bullpen a ‘pat’. “There was a time when you were _worse_?”

 

“Yeah.” He nods, pinning her with dark eyes as he takes a deep drag of his cigarette. Blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth, he tells her quietly, “‘fore I met you.”

 

_Gosh darn him._

 

Her chest swells with warmth. She has to bite her cheeks to keep from smiling as she huffs, “Puh-lease.”

 

“What?” His face scrunches in irritation. She can tell it’s put-on. “Made a proper fuckin’ 'ousepet outta me, ‘aven’t cha? Don’t pretend yah don’t know it.”

 

She did smile at that. “Goodness only knows what you’ve made me.”

 

“An ‘onest woman,” he says with a proud smirk.

 

_Smug jerk._

 

“Oh kiss my ass, Tom,” she shoots back, grinning now.

 

He clucks his tongue, “Lan-guage, madam”, then thumbs his nose and sniffs. “But if that’s what yah want…”

She holds up her hand, _Save it_ , and turns on the faucet for warm water, flinching as she catches her reflection in the mirror above the sink. Her curls are mussed, her mascaras smeared, and she’s slick down to her knees.

 

She’s going to need paper towels. Lots and lots of paper towels.

 

____________________________________________________________________________

 

“I just wanna see it for a second,” she begs quietly, breasts pressed against his chest and eyes on his mouth when the elevator door closes. It’s two-ten, and they need to boogey.

 

 _Falls is going to kill me_.

 

She puts on a pretty pout and a soft whine as she pleads, “Please Tom? I’m thirsty.”

 

“Where’s your water bottle?” he rumbles, not bothering to hide the fact that he is loving this as he runs his fingers through her hair. The elevator dings cheerfully as it starts its descent towards the parking deck.

 

“I left it in the car. It’ll be hot-” She reaches around him to press the _Hold_ button.

 

“I’m takin’ you to lunch-” Despite his teasing, she can tell he’s anxious to get her out of the station.

 

 _Too bad, so sad_.

 

“I can’t wait that long.” She smooths her hand over her belly, glancing down at it and back at him. “The baby’s thirsty, Tom.”

 

He rolls his eyes. “Oh come on-”

 

“I’m serious!” She makes a pitiful _ahuh-huh_ sound, giving him her biggest eyes. “We’re so thirsty, Daddy.”

 

“Mother Mary weepin’ at the cross.” Tom scrubs a hand over his face and mashes _Four_ with a growl.

 

She brightens, kissing him lightly on the lips. _"_ Thank you.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.” He pats her sharply on the ass. “Fuckin’ spoiled’s what you are. Comin’ down ‘ere in the first place without tellin’ me. Should start lockin’ you up when I leave. ‘ow’dyah like that? That’d teach you to listen-”

 

He’s still grumbling to himself as he leads her down the hall to the canteen, shortening his considerable stride to match the pace of her waddle.

 

He opens the door, glowering down at her as he admonishes, “-know better than to leave your water in the car. ‘eat like this and in your way, thing needs tah be nailed to your ‘and-”

 

“Sur-prise!"

 

Tom jerks, hand reaching behind him for his gun for a second as he shouts back, “Oi! Watch it!”

 

Everyone in the crowd gathered around the make-shift cake table flinches, except for Falls, who’s practically vibrating with excitement as she roars back with a thousand-watt smile, “Watch it, yerself!”

 

Susan herds him through the door as Porter clears his throat and begins in a surprisingly on-key baritone, “For he’s a jolly good fellow-” waving his fingers like a conductor.

 

Falls belts the loudest; Susan winces at her high crescendo as Tom turns and snaps at her in a low, dangerous growl, “Did you do this?”

 

She smiles softly, unruffled by his dramatics. “We did, for you. We love you.”

 

“Is it?”

 

He straightens, ignoring Falls as she shouts, “I’m cuttin’ the cake!” and Porter hedges, “Shouldn’t we let Sergeant Brant-”

 

“You love me so much.” He nods to himself. “Tell me this, then: how’d you forget it’s not my fuckin’ birthday?”

 

Susan’s smile widens, dimples on overdrive now, and she can see the creases in his brow start to soften as she says, “I know it’s not your birthday, Tom. I-”

 

“It’s blue!” Falls shrieks, heels of her uniform shoes clacking on the tile as she hops up-and-down.

 

The small party breaks into a raucous of cheers and whistles and, “Well done, Guv!”s.

 

Tom looks at Falls, at the piece of blue cake wobbling on her plate. “She gone nuts?”

 

“Noo, not quite.” Susan strokes her hand down his arm to draw his eyes back to hers. “I needed something to write on the cake, so you wouldn’t get any bright ideas, detective.”

 

“What?”

 

“It’s a boy, yah thick sod!” Falls crows, running in place now with delight. “Blue means you’re ‘avin’ a boy!”

 

“A boy?” His eyes dart from Falls to the cake to Susan’s belly, and then back to Susan. She can practically hear his mind whirring as he snaps the pieces of the puzzle into place. Finally, his throat works, Adam’s apple bobbing, and he asks, “S’a boy?”

 

She nods. “Positively. I've got pictures to prove it.”

 

“I’m ‘avin’ a boy?” He turns to the crowd again, arms out low as his sides. “I’m ‘avin’ a boy!”

 

The gang erupts in another cheer, their enthusiasm seemingly bottomless as Tom’s entire expression transforms into one of triumph. He suddenly punches his fist in the air and roars, “I’m ‘avin’ a son!”

 

Susan laughs out-loud with delight.

 

He snatches her up, dragging her against him and kissing her hard on the mouth before taking her face in his hands and telling her, “You brilliant, brilliant girl! We’re ‘avin’ a son!”

 

Her breath catches; she’s never seen him look so happy.

 

Here, in this moment with him, everything is real.

 

“You deserve it,” she whispers, smiling as her chest tingles and swells with warmth.

 

He takes her by the belly with one large hand and jiggles her. “You brilliant, clever, sneaky li’le girl. God, I love yah.”

 

He kisses her again, tongue down her throat and hands on her hips in a bruising grip as she wraps her arms around his neck and crushes him to her.

 

Falls is wriggling her hips as they pull apart, pawing at the air and tossing her head side-to-side as she beat-boxes her own music. Porter’s grinning like a madman.

 

Tom strides across the canteen with his arm extended, and she thinks he and Porter are going to shake hands, until Porter meets him in the middle and the two of them lock elbows, and oh good God are they doing a jig?

 

Susan stares dumbfounded as Porter Nash, of all people, and her husband stomp and kick their heels in perfect time, their arms linked and hands in the air as the party starts to pound out a rhythm with their feet. Soon there’s clapping, and the two of them are grinning like little boys as they leap and kick their feet, singing a song in accents so thick she can’t understand them.

 

_Beautiful._

 

The ballad ends with a great stomp and their arms thrown high and wide in the air, bellowing, “An’ they drank ‘til the mor-nin’!”

 

____________________________________________________________________________

 

“Suzy?” he calls from the living room.

 

“Yeah?” she calls back, tipping a generous piece of cake onto her plate. She sucks the icing off her thumb.

 

“Come ‘ere.”

 

“Coming!” She snaps the lid back on the cake carrier, relieved the party guests ate so much of the cake, and pleased she still has a sizable chunk left for her.

 

And Tom, of course.

 

She plucks up the Mason jar by the sink and a fork out of the dish rack on her way to the living room, smiling when she spots Tom on the couch.

 

He pats his knee.

 

Dodger stands, grinning, then huffs when Tom snaps, “Not you, dog. Your name Susan?”

 

Susan holds her plate higher as she settles herself in Tom’s lap, stretching over her belly to set the jar on the coffee table.

 

“Whas that?”

 

“Cake,” she replies breezily. Cutting off a sliver with her fork, she asks, “Wanna bite?”

 

He scowls and bounces her lightly on his knee.

 

“That.” He juts his chin at the jar, adding tersely, “Yah know I don’t like white cake.”

 

“Sorry, sweet pea,” she chirps around a mouthful. “Chocolate doesn’t show the food coloring.”

 

“Lemme,” he grunts, eyes on her mouth as he makes a _give-it-here_ motion for the plate.

 

She rolls her eyes and huffs. “Fine.”

 

_Should'a known better than to try eating this in front of him._

 

Kink nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine: Tom likes to feed her.

 

He pinches off a bit of cake with his thumb and forefinger.

 

Literally.

 

He offers it to her, lips parting and making a soft groaning sound when she takes his fingers in her mouth and sucks the cake off of them.

 

“So fuckin’ sexy, you know that?”

 

She smiles around his fingers and winks at him.

 

He breaks off another piece for her; this time she uses her tongue as she closes her mouth over him.

 

“Ah yeah,” he hisses, eyes glued to her mouth. “Look a’that. Fuckin’ eat that ca-”

 

_Oh for heaven’s sake._

 

She claps her hand lightly over his mouth, reminding him, “Tom, the deal was no narrating. Remember?”

 

“You take your tits out?” he asks when she pulls her hand away, looking down the neckline of the soft tee shirt she’d changed into.

 

She looks up at the ceiling, shrugging. “Why? Why do I bother?”

 

“Come on.” He bounces her again. “Don’t be unfriendly.”

 

“Ta-ah-ahm,” she whines, dropping her head on his shoulder. “I’m ti-red. I need to _rest_.”

 

“Alright, alright.” He shifts, offering her his finger coated in icing. “Come on then and ‘ave your cake.”

 

She sits up in his lap with her arm draped across his shoulders and lets him feed her, ignoring his hard-on pressing into her asscheek and the soft breathy groans he makes while she eats. It’s a little ridiculous, but then, so is Tom.

 

He tells her about collecting her Glock from Charlie between concentrating on watching her eat. She laughs so hard at his imitation of the poor thing's stutter she snorts.

 

He's panting and smiling like a shark by the time she’s finished her cake. She makes a point of ignoring him as she takes her plate from him and sets it on the coffee table. Dodger eyes it and licks his chops.

 

_Speaking of._

 

Tom is gently rolling and squeezing her belly in his hands.

 

“Baby?”

 

“What?” he husks, stretching up and pressing his tongue into her mouth before she can answer him.

 

She thinks he might be too far gone for-

 

“There’s something I want to show you,” she whispers against his mouth as they pull apart. Touching her forehead to his, she asks, “Do you want me to show you now, or later?”

 

“Show me.”

 

“It’s not my tits.”

 

He bounces her. “Show me.”

 

She stretches out for the jar on the coffee table, fingertips plucking along the open mouth to inch it close enough for her to grab. “I- have been- saving- these-”

 

“Whew!” She puffs her bangs out of her eyes when she finally has it. “Here.”

 

She beams at him. “Pick one.”

 

His eyes narrow suspiciously. “Pick what?”

 

“Your son’s name,” she says, _Silly rabbit_ , still smiling.

 

“Susan-” He stops, closing his eyes and working his throat.

 

Her chest pangs.

 

"Honey," she soothes as she strokes her hand over his head.

 

Sometimes she gets so wrapped up in her own self-recrimination that she forgets about his.

 

_My poor Tom._

 

When he looks at her finally, she can see the anguish in the faint lines around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. She follows the bridge of his nose with her fingertip. “What’s the story, morning glory?”

 

“You-” It’s harsh, gravelled. He clears his throat once, twice, then starts again. “You are the only thing I’ve ever loved.”

 

She ducks her head, blinking against the prick in her eyes as she reaches into the jar and fluffs the slips of paper to shuffle them. Sniffing, she holds the jar a little higher. “Now you have two things. What do you wanna call the second one?”

 

She pretends not to notice the slight tremble in his fingers as he reaches into the jar, or the jagged edges of his breath as he fishes out a slip of paper.

 

He hands it to her, scrubbing his hand over his face as he watches her unfold it.

 

She squints to read it, and smiles.

 

_Oh thank goodness, it’s a good one._

 

“Well?” He looks from her to the piece of paper and back again. "Come on, then. What's it say?"

 

“Liam. Our baby’s name is Liam.”

 

He grins, hooking his thumb into her belly button and jiggling her firmly. "Thomas Liam Brant! You'll be a 'oly terror, won'tcha boy?"

 

_Christmas on a cracker._

 

Tom's never looked prouder.

 

"Please don't say that," she mewls as he cups her head and drags her down for a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Your comments are always appreciated! And if you haven't had a chance to see Blitz yet, do!


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